Seller's Market

As I've mentioned before, I used to be a huge record collector. Years of accumulating and living in a small apartment with a wife whose fabric and bead collection seemed to multiply weekly made me think more and more about selling stuff off. Actually, as much as I liked finding and buying, I also liked letting stuff go, culling my collection of stuff I hadn't listened to in a while, releasing my treats into the world in hopes that my efforts would result in treats coming back to me.


Ebay was helpful with this - I sold records for awhile when I was getting rid of my vinyl and would make at least $100 each time I posted stuff. Through the luck of good timing, I was occasionally able to 'buy low and sell high,' unloading Sub Pop singles I bought for 3 or 4 bucks in college for $30 or so. Just like the housing bubble, those days are long gone. Also like the housing bubble, I have a nagging suspicion that I had something to do with causing it.

I felt I earned whatever money I got, after dealing with nit-picky questions, annoying cheapskates, and buyers who would flake out after winning, as well as standing in line at the post office and buying mailers and whatnot. And inevitably, even though it was posted over and over that I only shipped to North America, at least once each auction I'd get an email from the high bidder saying "How much to be shipping to Turkey."

Sure, I could stick to my guns, but money was money, and if selling to Balki could clear some stuff out of my house and make me some cabbage, then I was shipping to Turkey. Plus, I felt justified gouging him a bit for shipping to compensate for my pain and suffering.

As annoying as ebay buyers could be, however, they were nowhere near as aggravating, confusing and downright crazy as yard sale people, if only for the fact that yard sale people were actually yammering ridiculous questions at you in 3 dimensions, and you couldn't turn the computer off to make them disappear.

My ex-wife and I had a couple yard sales when we lived in Riverside. I think our apartment was near the center of prime yard sale happy hunting grounds or something, because we never did half as well once we moved to Murray Hill, where you'd think there would be more poor people looking to sift through our refuse.

We never put an ad in the paper, we'd just put up signs, which is where potential customers would first start harassing me. As I'd try to tape a sign to a cement post with a roll of wrapping tape, looking like Pee Wee taping up the reward flyer for his bike, people would yell questions at me from their cars. "Where is that?" What time do you open?" "What are you gonna have there?" I could understand their excitement, though. I mean, just look at me struggling with this sign. Why, anyone could see from my clothing and demeanor I was a man of wealth and taste. What valuables would I have waiting the next day? Used gold bars? Cursed antiques? Rare spices from the Orient?

Once crazy yard sale people see a sign and a starting time, they memorize that stuff, driving by an hour early, hoping we were setting up the gold dubloons extra early just for them. Actually, at that point, we were trying to figure out how to set up the card table and still putting price tags on everything. They'd still circle around in their old Cadillacs jammed full of treasures, just watching us. It was like being in a shark tank at feeding time.

If you want to see the strangest people in your community without visiting your local nut house or the public library, just set up a table and start selling your used stuff. Here's a conversation I had with a guy:

"You got any bookshelves for sale?"

"Nope. Had some earlier, though."

"Oh yeah? How tall were they?"

"I dunno...about 6 feet, I guess."

"How many shelves?"

"Like, five, I think."

"Were they wood or metal?"

"They were wood. But they're gone. Somebody bought them hours ago. Sorry."

"Hmmm...was it a dark wood or a light wood?"

Later that afternoon I had a guy haggle with me over a 26" TV/VCR I was selling for fifteen bucks. He wouldn't take my word that it worked, so I had to lug it upstairs and plug it in to demonstrate.

The whole time I'm thinking, "It's a TV for fifteen bucks. If it doesn't work, just turn it into a fishtank or drop it off a building or pretend you're Elvis and shoot the screen out. Hell, that's worth fifteen bucks in entertainment right there."

But I didn't say anything and let him take it away for ten bucks, since it kept me from lugging it back upstairs.

I don't have as much stuff to sell anymore, although if someone from like Africa or Haiti were to look at my treasures I'm sure they'd have a different opinion. Every once in a while I think about getting rid of some of it, either online or in person, but then my laziness and hermit-ish-ness kicks in, and I kick that thought out of my mind and drive it down to the Goodwill. Actually, I found that the Vietnam Vets will take the stuff right off your porch, and you don't have to even have to talk to another human being! What a wonderful time to be a lazy hermit with too much stuff!

Billion Dollar Babies

My sister and I were all set up to be billionaires. Back when she was in middle/high school I'd come home from a date or whatever and she'd be in the living room watching TV. I'd get in the other easy chair (I don't know what my parents had against couches) and watch with her for a while. I believe it was usually "Love Connection." You know, like the lyric in that Beastie Boys song - "dating women on TV with the help of Chuck Woolery?" No? Well, maybe it was before your time.

We'd both end up getting sleepier and sleepier, with longer pauses between our comments about whatever we were watching. Turning off the TV and walking to our bedrooms seemed impossible. Not only that, but before going to bed we'd both have to brush our teeth.

Then the idea hit us. What if there was a pill you could chew that would brush your teeth for you? Say you come home late or you're out in the woods or just too lazy to go to the bathroom to brush your teeth, you'd chew up this pill, spit it out and have all the benefits of brushing your teeth without any of that effort.

We talked about this pill constantly. We were going to make a fortune. Do you know how many lazy people were looking for just such a time saver? Well, we didn't either, but it had to be a lot.

Of course, we had no idea how to actually make such a pill, or what would be in it. Would it foam up like Alka-Seltzer? Would it just automatically brush your teeth just by being in your mouth? These were the questions that we could never find satisfactory answers to. Plus, I'm pretty sure the toothbrush lobby was on to us and starting to ramp up their pressure.

In the end, we abandoned our toothbrushing pill plans, leaving behind untold riches and fame so we could better fit in with the common people. I have not noticed anyone picking up the gauntlet since, but a little-known patent law states that once a vague idea is written about on the internet, it acts as a sort of patent. So scientists, once you perfect that stuff, start sending that sweet cash to me and my sister.

Money Changes Everything

I often wonder what sort of rich guy I'd make. Understand that when I say "rich," I don't mean well-off or comfortable, I'm talking diving in Scrooge McDuck money tanks rich.

Would I be an Elvis kind of rich guy, where I'd have a gang of hangers-on indulging my every whim while I shoot out TVs and pass the days in a self-medicated haze? Would I be a Howard Hughes rich guy where I hermited myself away from the germs of the common people while I grew my beard to ZZ Top lengths? These are the sorts of questions that keep me up at night.

Sure, there's the Bill Gates/Andrew Carnegie model, where I donate tons of my riches to charity, but where's the fun in that? I guess it does give you a pretty good bargaining chip at the pearly gates - "See, I could have been shooting out teevees but instead I established libraries and helped AIDS patients, so you really ought to cut me some slack on some of that other stuff."

Of course, this is all just a daydream, as I'm barely a hundredaire after paying the monthly bills.